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"I had a fully loaded junk bond portfolio that
Didn't work out like it was supposed to
There's a mountain of money in the bond market
That I can't seem to get close to
I've been headed down the road to ruin.
The end is nowhere in sight.
But Randy Johnson throws a baseball 97 miles an hour and I'm gonna be alright."

Ugh. Centerfield is the most horribly contrived lets-see-if-I-can-write-an-anthem song of all times - right up there with "We Built This City". And I love Fogerty.

A-freakin-men. Can't stand it. And I love Fogerty too.

I'm a fan of The Baseball Project's work, mostly because Steve Wynn and Buck & Mills are minor rock gods to me. Not the most accessible pop music but their lyrics are teh awesome and they're all really serious baseball fans.

Yeah, that's a swing and a miss. Frishberg has another song called "Matty" about Big Six that I'm even more fond of.

This is the perfect opportunity to plug Hungry for Music's Diamond Cuts collection. They're a charitable organization that's released years' worth of baseball music. Some filler on their CDs, of course, but more than enough good stuff to make them worthwhile. Dan Bern's "5-0 Lead," for example.

All the Way is a TERRIBLE SONG - and Jim Caple just compared it to fuoking Imagine

Even as a Cardinals fan, I was able to appreciate the transcendent moment when this past July (following a 2.5 hour mid-concert rain delay) Ernie Banks came on the Wrigley stage at ten til midnight and said "Let's play 2", and then joined Vedder for All the Way. The fact that Banks and Vedder refused to let the show end early, and had enough pull (h/t Theo and Rahm) to get the curfew extended, was remarkable. Seeing Mr Cub - in uniform - welcoming everyone to his house at midnight is a moment I will never forget.

but that doesn't make All the Way a good song...and the fact that a bunch of ballplayers who are buds with Vedder like it is completely beside the point

John Lennon would be rolling over in his grave if he hadn't been cremated.

best hockey song is brass bonanza.... but if you mean songs about hockey, uhhhh, the only one i can think of is ben weasel from screeching weasel having a song called blood on the ice. i dont even remember it outside of it i think being a chicago wolves song. nowhere near as huge as prince's vikings song from a few years back.

Well, for Jay fans it has to be OK Blue Jays. Couldn't find a good video showing the crowd though from the 80's and early 90's when it would get right into it with the punching in the air and exercises. Great fun when there are 50,000 people all doing it together.

Ugh. Centerfield is the most horribly contrived lets-see-if-I-can-write-an-anthem song of all times - right up there with "We Built This City".

"Centerfield" isn't a masterpiece but it's a perfectly fine baseball song -- once a year. Overplaying is what has killed it

That piece of #### was overplayed the second time it hit the turntable. Every time I hear it I picture some whiny benchwarming Little Leaguer demanding to be put into the game just in time to muff the game-ending fly ball, and then defiantly say "AT LEAST I TRIED."

Sorry, I knew too many spazeroonos BITD ever to get sentimental about songs like that. Go join the Iowa Cornfield Soccer League or something, kiddo.

Well, that's only what, 3 albums (or are you referring to his other projects too?)? The Life of the World To Come was a bit underwhelming, but Transcendental Youth & All Eternals Deck are both solid.

IMO The Mountain Goats never had a great peak but you can always count on them to put out a well-crafted album.

Huh, I see it the other way, kinda. Life of the World to Come isn't one of my favorite albums but it's an interesting concept; the lyrics on the last two seem like formulaic revisits of old ground. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Edit: or maybe it's just weird seeing them settle into a style after spending over a decade evolving, lyrically and musically.

Huh, I see it the other way, kinda. Life of the World to Come isn't one of my favorite albums but it's an interesting concept; the lyrics on the last two seem like formulaic revisits of old ground. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Edit: or maybe it's just weird seeing them settle into a style after spending over a decade evolving, lyrically and musically.

I'd agree more with this. I really like Life of the World to Come, but All Eternals is pretty hit-and-miss and I can't get into Transcendental Youth at all. I want to like it (Diaz Brothers is fun), but lyrically it's really stale. The addition of horns was nice, but his stories don't resonate all that well, and he has this odd developing tendency to repeat words in songs in a really odd way that comes off as lazy.

They're still my favorite band, but they rely pretty heavily on a well-written song. When that isn't clicking, there's only so much you can do with three chords.

All Eternals Deck is perhaps the best album Darnielle's made. I'm not going to say it's better than Sweden, Nothing for Juice, All Hail West Texas, or We Shall All Be Healed, but it's in the conversation. Heretic Pride and Transcendental Youth are certainly piecemeal though. And Get Lonely is maybe his worst album. All in all he's batting about .500 on 4A records

"Centerfield" isn't aggressively annoying. The song can play all the way through at the stadium before or after the game and it's even money I won't even be aware of it; it's pretty easy to tune out.

I thought these two posts were bullseyes, though:

I'm so sad that Fogerty is now pretending that "Centerfield" is about baseball, rather than about his return to the music industry.

and

That piece of #### was overplayed the second time it hit the turntable. Every time I hear it I picture some whiny benchwarming Little Leaguer demanding to be put into the game just in time to muff the game-ending fly ball, and then defiantly say "AT LEAST I TRIED."

Sorry, I knew too many spazeroonos BITD ever to get sentimental about songs like that. Go join the Iowa Cornfield Soccer League or something, kiddo.

For those of us who didn't grow up in major league cities, I remember a campy obscure song by the old country group Alabama called "Cheap Seats" that I always found oddly charming in its portrayal of casual beer-fans in minor league parks. Minor demerits to the songwriter for making a point of a nonmajor city having a Triple-A team. But that's nowhere near as grating as Springsteen's reference to the "speedball." I HATE IT SO MUCH. It's a catchy enough song, but overplayed and just because of that one goddamned word I'd rather listen to "Centerfield" every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I remember a campy obscure song by the old country group Alabama called "Cheap Seats"

They used to have this on rotation during the pregame of every Miami Hurricanes baseball game. It struck me as ironic that this would be played at a metropolitan private university not in the south generally occupied by a number of star players.